A trio of summer burns

1) As a middle-aged woman whose major form of summer exercise involves a vigorous stroll from my car to the take-out window at Dairy Queen, I'm always amused by stories about swimwear trends.

This summer, style editors gush that one-piece bathing suits are making a "comeback," which may surprise women unaware that they ever left.

"If you show up in a one-piece it's definitely a statement," said Connie Wang, style director of the lifestyle website Refinery29.

It's a statement all right. For women of a certain age, the statement is, "I would not be caught dead in a bikini without the assistance of time travel."

Wang added, "It's a good thing for women that there are so many more options now that fulfill different desires of what you want to achieve at the beach."

I was also unaware that women were obliged to achieve anything at the beach, short of not drowning and remembering to apply sunscreen to easily-forgotten areas such as earlobes, toes and that unfortunate glob of flesh that once vaguely resembled triceps.

Next year, let's hope the newest swimwear trend involves body armor.

2) Like offering chum to newspaper-reading sharks, we dutifully reported yesterday that the president's visit to Worcester Technical High School's graduation came with a $186,000 price tag, most of it for security, according to an assessment by the city manager.

Of course, the large number of commenters on the T&G website responded with the thoughtful insight and nuanced reasoning we have come to expect.

"Isn't that wonderful," read the majority opinion. "How terrific that the city was able to host such a distinguished personage, which of course comes with requisite costs."

Ha! In our dreams.

"The way they treat us like their personal ATM is shameful and disgusting," wrote one reader, who also claimed that the president's vacation to Martha's Vineyard will cost taxpayers $37 billion. "This president and his wife Moochelle has spent more money on trips worldwide than any other president," wrote another.

Worcester is certainly a lovely place. But when the president speaks at a high school graduation and remains on stage to shake the hand of every graduate, does anyone equate this trip with a Vegas junket?

3) Increasingly, Sarah Palin resembles a person recovering from the inhaled gas administered during a dental procedure. In yet another speech that proves she has become a caricature of herself, she renewed calls for the impeachment of Barack Obama by mindlessly invoking her favorite buzz words.

"Folks, he is radically changing the balance of power," she said Saturday, at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver. "It's setting a wicked dangerous precedent."

She went on to explain that God wants Obama impeached because God apparently likes to hit the gas. "This president's forgotten man is we the people, and we the people know that our best days are still ahead because we know that God shed his grace. He's given us our freedom to do what's right. God doesn't drive parked cars. I think he expects us to get up and take action in order to defend these freedoms that are God given. I think it's an affront to God to let this go on because he gave us these freedoms. We're not going to let someone, a person, a party take them from us. We're not going to dethrone God and substitute him with someone who wants to play God."

Her calls for impeachment, while over the top, are less crazy than her rambling justifications. And it's scary to remember that this nut job could have become vice president of the United States, or worse.